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Prince Edward hot and Donny Osmond not – a view from 1981

This I found in my archives and it made me chuckle. A pop annual in 1981 decided to pronounce on who was hot and who was not at the start of the decade.

The Tourists were hot – with Annie Lennox later to forge a career out of that band. Madness, meanwhile, were detaching from the 2Tone bandwagon and had a string of chart hits.

By an unfortunate coincidence, two of the hot people for 1981 were Eddie Kidd and Christopher Reeve who would both end up severely disabled for very different reasons – one from a motorbike stunt going wrong and the other falling from a horse.

Why on earth Prince Edward was thought of as hot is beyond me! But there he is. The sort of Prince William of his day. Seen as an eligible royal catch for somebody. Not my cup of Earl Grey tea!

Not hot were the fading stars of the 1970s – Donny and Marie Osmond, Shaun Cassidy (half brother of David Cassidy, the more successful 70s singer), Leif Garrett (whose decline was even referenced on an episode of Family Guy!) and John Travolta.

Before being rescued by Pulp Fiction, Travolta had some grim cinematic outings after the glory years of Saturday Night Fever and Grease. Child was a dreadful pop group much beloved of Top Of The Pops due to their safeness in the face of punk and Andy Gibb was the youngest of the Bee Gees clan, soon to die young.

The Professionals was obviously felt to be a TV programme past its sell by date in 1981 and so not hot. But in retrospect, I think The Professionals deserved better than that. Your views?